Scott Neuman

Scott Neuman is a reporter and editor, working mainly on breaking news for NPR's digital and radio platforms.

He brings to NPR years of experience as a journalist at a variety of news organizations based all over the world. He came to NPR from The Associated Press in Bangkok, Thailand, where he worked as an editor on the news agency's Asia Desk. Prior to that, Neuman worked in Hong Kong with The Wall Street Journal, where among other things he reported extensively from Pakistan in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He also spent time with the AP in New York, and in India as a bureau chief for United Press International.

A native Hoosier, Neuman's roots in public radio (and the Midwest) run deep. He started his career at member station WBNI in Fort Wayne, and worked later in Illinois for WNIU/WNIJ in DeKalb/Rockford and WILL in Champaign-Urbana.

Neuman is a graduate of Purdue University. He lives with his wife, Noi, on the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland.

After Chief Justice John Roberts read the Supreme Court's majority opinion Thursday that upheld the Affordable Care Act, the reaction from conservatives was predictable and strong. But Roberts is far from the first justice to act in unexpected ways.

Running for president means spending a lot of time convincing the public that you really want the job. Not so if you're seeking the No. 2 spot.

The road to the vice presidency, history shows, is paved with feigned disinterest.

"If you're going to be vice president, you're going to be in the president's shadow," says Jody Baumgartner, a political science professor at East Carolina University. "If you appear to be seeking the vice presidency, drawing attention to yourself, that's not really a quality that a presidential candidate is looking for."

The Supreme Court's decision to strike down much of Arizona's immigration law is being hailed as a victory by both sides in a fight likely to spawn many more legal battles.

Monday, the court struck down three of four provisions in the law but upheld, at least for the moment, a controversial measure allowing police to check the immigration status of anyone stopped or detained for any reason.

On the final day of confessed Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik's trial, the defense is trying to portray him as an ideologically driven political militant rather than a delusional madman in hopes of getting a lighter sentence or an outright acquittal.

Breivik, 33, an anti-Muslim extremist, has admitted to the bombing and shooting that killed 77 people in the capital Oslo.

Heavily armed Taliban insurgents attacked a lakefront resort near Kabul overnight, killing at least 21 people during an assault and 12-hour standoff with combined Afghan and NATO forces.

The attack occurred at the Spozhmai Hotel on Lake Qargha, a popular recreation area for upscale Afghans just outside the capital. The Taliban claim they attacked because it was used by wealthy Afghans and foreigners to engage in "immoral activities."

If you think only farmers care about the farm bill currently being considered by Congress, you're very, very mistaken.

The measure will not only set policy and spending for the nation's farms for years to come, but it will also affect dozens of other seemingly unrelated programs — all at a cost of nearly $1 trillion over the next decade. Following are a few questions and answers about the massive legislation:

Kristi Taylor can pinpoint the precise moment she let go of the dream of homeownership. It was a few months ago, as she and her husband and infant son were driving through a neighborhood of homes near their apartment in Athens, Ga.

"As we were passing through, I realized that I don't really look at houses like I used to, when we would point out homes and say, 'That can be ours someday,' " says Taylor, who is 28. Now, she says, "the idea of homeownership is so vague, it doesn't even strike me as something that's in our future."

The Wisconsin recall election might have failed, but it succeeded in sending an ominous message to pro-labor forces across the nation — especially in the Midwest, where a handful of legislatures are pushing to roll back collective bargaining and other union rights.

The vote against Republican Gov. Scott Walker was prompted by his support for a law limiting collective bargaining for some public sector employees. His victory Tuesday night could embolden governors in states such as Ohio, Indiana and Missouri to push back harder on labor rights.

Less than 250 years ago, the brightest minds of the Enlightenment were stumped over how far the Earth is from the sun. The transits of the 1760s helped answer that question, providing a virtual yardstick for the universe.

The CIA has a term called "blowback" to describe when an operation against the enemy has unintended negative consequences for the U.S. or its allies. In the age of cyberwarfare, blowback seems to be a paramount concern.

It might seem counterintuitive that Amazon is doing a deal with New Jersey to build two distribution centers in exchange for collecting sales tax on purchases made in the Garden State starting July 1, 2013.

After all, the free lunch enjoyed by many consumers as they shop tax-free online is one of the huge draws, right?

The words of JPMorgan Chase's CEO, Jamie Dimon, as he admitted late yesterday that the investment bank — or, more precisely, a single "rogue trader" working for the bank, had lost some $2 billion in the last six weeks in risky hedge-fund trades.

The news has sent chills through the markets. Shares of JPMorgan Chase, the largest U.S. bank, lost 7 percent in after-hours trading and British bank Barclays lost 2.9 percent, while more than 2 percent was shaved from Royal Bank of Scotland.

Russia's newly reinstalled President Vladimir Putin will be too busy with affairs at home to make a planned visit to the United States this month, where he was to have a high-profile tête-à-tête with President Obama and attend the G8 summit.

In his place, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who swapped places with Putin in recent elections, will go to the global economic summit.

Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng says his family is being hounded by local authorities in Shandong, his home province, with his brother and sister-in-law placed under house arrest and his nephew detained.

Chen's flight last month from house arrest and his request for refuge from U.S. diplomats has caused considerable embarrassment for Chinese authorities and threatened to damage U.S.-Sino relations. Since then, Beijing has agreed in a face-saving move to allow the blind, self-taught legal activist and his immediate family to study in the United States.

A pair of powerful explosions ripped through Syria's capital, killing at least 50 people in the deadliest attack in the country's 14-month uprising. Some 170 people were wounded, according to state television.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but local TV reports called the attacks "terrorist bombings".

The explosions damaged a military intelligence building and left blood and human remains in the streets, according to The Associated Press.

Senate Republicans gave a thumbs down to a Democratic plan that would have frozen interest rates for 7.4 million students taking out new federally subsidized Stafford loans.

The vote was 52-45. Sixty votes were needed to avoid a certain Republican filibuster and to move the bill toward debate.

From the Republican perspective, it wasn't the idea of keeping the rate at 3.4 percent rather than letting it double starting in July. The impasse was over how to fund the one-year rate freeze, which would cost the government $6 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Europe's unsettled political climate after the weekend elections in France and Greece raise one obvious question: What's next?

The elections, in which French President Nicolas Sarkozy was defeated and Greece's major political parties struggled to form a governing coalition, have raised fears about the political and economic stability of the European Union. Some potential scenarios coming out of the elections:

When Harvard divinity professor Harvey Cox arranged to meet with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger at the Vatican in 1988, a group of nuns thought he was wasting his time.

"I was chatting and having dinner with a number of Dominican sisters who were staying there for a 30-day retreat," Cox says. "They were incredulous that I wanted to bother seeing Ratzinger. 'Why do you want to do that?' they asked. 'Who pays any attention to him?' "

Allegations that Wal-Mart officials in Mexico paid local authorities to speed up permits to build new stores could result in a trial and a huge financial penalty under a U.S. anti-corruption law. But legal experts who spoke to NPR have their doubts it will ever come to that.

Judge Kenneth Lester says George Zimmerman can go free as he awaits trial if he posts a $150,000 bail.

Lester said as a condition of his release, Zimmerman would be electronically monitored, could have no contact with Trayvon Martin's family and would be prohibited from possessing firearms or using alcohol. He will also be on a curfew and have to check in every three days.

The judge said once he is assured that security measures have been met, Zimmerman will be freed.

"It's dark. The only lights we're getting here are from the ambulance[s]," she says. "It's crawling now with civil defense [personnel] who are sort of picking through this wheat field to find what remains of the plane."

In a letter to the United Nations Security Council, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon says the Syrian government is not living up to its end of the bargain on a week-old cease-fire deal.

Ban says the government has failed to keep its pledge to withdraw troops and heavy weapons from cities, but adds that he still thinks there is "opportunity for progress."

The Secretary General's letter comes as the U.N. and Syria apparently worked out details of an observer mission to monitor the shaky deal meant to end more than a year of bloodshed that has killed an estimated 9,000 people.

North Korea this week quite literally demonstrated an old truism, with the world as an anxious witness. It turns out that reaching space is, as the saying goes, as tough as rocket science.

The much hyped launch of the Unha-3 rocket, which North Korea said was meant to place a satellite into orbit to celebrate the centenary of the country's "Great Leader" Kim Il Sung, apparently failed Friday shortly after launch. It was the fourth time North Korea had tried and failed to do it, adding to the growing worldwide history of failed rocket launches.

A rocket that North Korea says is slated to put the country's first-ever satellite into orbit has been moved to a launchpad for possible blastoff as early as this week, amid reports that the secretive regime is also planning a fresh nuclear test.

The Unha-3 rocket is sitting astride a gantry at the Sohae Satellite Station at Tongchang-ri, along the country's northwest coast, according to the BBC. Pyongyang says it could launch sometime between April 12-16.

Remembrances of legendary CBS newsman and long-time 60 Minutes co-host Mike Wallace were still pouring in after his death over the weekend. Wallace died at age 93.

Jeff Fager, the chairman of CBS News and 60 Minutes executive producer, said of the famously hard-nosed interviewer that "He loved the fact that if he showed up for an interview, it made people nervous."

Former first lady Nancy Reagan called him "an old school journalist and one of the most astute people I've met."